Apple’s walled garden makes a lot of pretty great features exclusive to Apple fans, such as FaceTime, cross-device syncing, and Memoji, however, among these features, AirDrop is one of the best features Android users have missed out on (unless you count alternatives) – that is, until now.
Brought to our attention by Mishaal Rahman, an Android fan that writes for websites like Android Central and Android Authority, a demo video of the app ‘WarpShare’ was posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
This app uses AirDrop to send files from your Android phone to your Macbook!
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) August 18, 2023
Yes, it actually uses AirDrop. That means you don’t have to install ANYTHING on your Mac to send files from your Android phone!
Here’s a video of a Galaxy Z Flip 5 AirDropping a file to a Macbook… pic.twitter.com/VXY71JWviA
When I first looked at the Twitter thread above, I didn’t believe it, but Rahman’s a wizard when it comes to Android devices, and we’ve referenced him several times when talking about Android news, so I feel like I can trust that he’s not pulling an out-of-season April fools joke on the internet. The GitHub page also looks legit.
What’s shown in the thread and video above is super seamless – it’s a file being shared from an Android phone (a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5) to a Macbook, using the Apple Wireless Direct Link protocol that enables AirDrop. This is a proprietary technology owned by Apple, which is why it hasn’t made its way onto non-Apple platforms, but WarpShare appears to trick the protocol into allowing Android file sharing.
There are, however, some limitations to this app. Firstly, the app currently only works when transferring from Android to MacOS; not to iOS, and not the other way around. Additionally, your AirDrop privacy on your Mac needs to be set to ‘everyone’, instead of ‘contacts only’.
Also, and this is potentially the biggest problem; if you were to search the Google Play store for WarpShare, you’d be out of luck. The app isn’t actually on the Google app store, and at the moment, the only way that you can get the app installed is if you install an APK using WarpShare’s GitHub data.
Rahman said that Patreon/X subscribers to him can request an already compiled APK file, but if you’re handy with Java and Makefile, and have access to an Android compiler, you could probably do it yourself.
Anyway, this rocks. Alternatively, you could try Nearby Share, which is Android’s version of AirDrop (it also has an unofficial MacOS port called NearDrop).